A collection of short films by mixed media artist Mike Rader:

The Thinker (animation) 1min. 2013
Cows (animation) 1 min. 2013
Generation Gap (animation) 1 min. 2013
Daniel Boone (animation) 1 min. 2013
Anatomy (animation) 2 min. 2013 & 2025
Frass (excerpt) 6 min. 2015
Sphinx (animation) 1 min. 2013
Piano Drawing 4 min. 2016
Horses (animation) 2 min. 2013
Man vs Ultraman 38 min. 2012

Animations (first five titles) are taken from the collection ‘A Year in a State of Animation’. The shorts are animated daydreams using images from books found in a dollar bin at a local bookstore.

Frass: The artist reflects on studio challenges and relating these paradoxes to everyday situations and temporary resolutions. It is derived from the German frass, the past tense of fressen, which means to gobble or to feed as an animal might.[1] The English usage derives the idea of excrement from what larvae had eaten and the refuse left behind.

Piano Drawing: Late night insomnia driven piano assisted gestural drawing. Premiere screening.

Man vs Ultraman: The task of painting a portrait is given to an artist who unearths more about himself in the undertaking than expected. The painting takes ‘The Man’ through a whimsical and dark journey of self exploration as he attempts to trust himself. In the self contained space of the artist’s studio, ‘The Man’ finds himself in a fantastical bucolic environment in which to nurture himself. By using the Japanese television show Ultraman as a catalyst, artist Mike Rader chaperons himself through the creative process and exposes how equally difficult it is to navigate life.

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Mike Rader is a mixed media artist working in animation, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing, while often combining all of these elements into film. Rader’s work reaches back into the hardwiring of the past to create a dialogue with the present. He is currently developing a film inspired by the personalities of the Three Stooges and how their distinct traits relate to the creative process.

His works have won multiple awards including the Vanguard Award for Best Experimental Film (Art of Brooklyn Film Festival), Best Art Direction (Manhattan Film Festival), and the Merit Award (Lucerne Film Festival). Mike Rader’s works have been shown in museums and galleries internationally including The Carnegie Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Toledo Museum of Art as well as multiple solo shows in New York. He is currently teaching at NYU, Parsons, and Yale University and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.